Tales from the Dun Cow 2

by MuncasterMonkey

33. Gentlemen and Players

​In the spring, Toby set out to raise a Dun Cow cricket team. He’s reluctant to talk about his credentials for this other than swearing he’s ‘can do’ and a mean spin bowler. I’ll say this for Toby, his enthusiasm burns bright and catches whilst it’s alight and he’s finally got it off the ground. Andy and me have promised our support at the inaugural match. But early Sunday morning of ‘the big day’ I get a call from him. ‘Have you got any white gear?’‘What for?’‘Well, it’s a bit of insurance, in case someone doesn’t show up.’‘I’d be no good Toby, zero skill aside, I can’t run because of my dodgy ankle.’‘It’s just in case, I’m sure you won’t be needed. It’s just a numbers thing. Don’t want to lose the first match on a technicality.’Silence betrays my suspicion. ‘Come on! It’s our first match, you said you wanted to contribute, help make it go right…’‘Why don’t I just bring a loaf of bread and a cucumber?’‘Okay. Have you got any whites?’Andy got that call too. Toby explains that he’s been scratching around for a full compliment and with Andy and me, has just made it. Our team is an assortment of shapes, sizes and ages, motley clad in generous variations on white. The Crown and Sceptre’s team look dapper, walk and talk confidence. A couple of them have brought proper kit bags and more than one bat. It’s not just the weather that looks ominous. We lose the toss and begin batting beneath a smudgy sky that looses sudden volleys of rain when it isn’t begrudging the sun. It feels like we spend most of the afternoon huddled under the peeling pavilion’s veranda, unable to converse whilst the rain hammers the tin roof, which is preferable to going inside to stifle in a fug of socks and warm damp. In between the hunched dashes for shelter we manage thirty-four for seven. Then it’s me. I attempt purposeful striding to the crease in best fit borrowed pads, carrying a bat that seems to be more tape than willow. To encouraging cries of ‘Come on Pops!’, a short, wheezy, tubby guy with grizzled grey hair and beard comes at me with a ‘run-up’ of three steps and a hop. Swoosh! Miss. Swoosh! Miss. Swoosh! Bowled third ball for nought. Crossing with Andy on his way to bat, he looks gimlet-eyed grim. He takes guard left-handed, making the stumps look small and smites ‘Pops’ mightily for six off his first ball, four off his second. It’s the best sound bat has made on ball all afternoon. End of the over. After two balls of the next, a wind whips up, light thickens and the heavens open. As the field empties in a rush for the pavilion, lightning fizzes across the sky followed by rolling, ripping thunder. I pass round my hip flask and we empty it as we wait, watching the playing field become a roiling lake. Match abandoned. Andy is top scorer, beating our star batsman who retired hurt on eight after copping one in the nethers.Back at The Dun Cow, Andy and me are still smarting at how easily Toby conned us into playing but he is upbeat, ‘First match, shared points. Result!’ He moves our pints to one side and spreads out some crumpled sketches on the table, smoothing them flat with the edge of his hand. As well as being captain and secretary, Toby has volunteered to design a club crest. ‘I’m struggling a bit’ he confesses, ‘it needs to be something that represents the team, the pub, our cricketing prowess, something that says “this is us”.’I suggest a cow’s arse with crossed banjos. ’With nil desperandum in that motto bit.’ Andy says laughing and pointing at Toby’s scroll work. Toby drops his head to his chest with a sigh. Andy adds ‘Maybe don’t include the nil.’‘You’re doing a grand job, Toby.’ I say. ‘I wish I could have done better by you.’Andy and me drink his health. Visibly appreciating this and beaming he says ‘Now, the next match is against The Queen’s Head. Andy, I think I’ll move you up the order.’Andy pshaws…but doesn’t object. Toby looks at me quizzically, scratching his head with his pencil. To his relief, I save him the trouble, ’Toby, you’d better keep scouting. I’m bread and cucumber at best.’

34. Same but different

Why Andy has chosen today to inform Toby and me that his ’number two son’ is gay becomes apparent when said son comes into the pub with his now live-in boyfriend to join us briefly and collect the keys to borrow Andy’s car. They can’t stop for a drink as they are in a rush and no sooner here than gone.‘That’s his partner.’ Andy says as they exit. ‘I haven’t told you before that he’s homosexual have I?’ The way Andy says ‘homosexual’ is more than awkward, it’s as if he’s chewing some tough food with burnt corners and I think ‘No wonder gay caught on.’ Toby and me exchange a smile and a ’No, after you!’ look. I take it up. ’You haven’t told us Andy but now you have.’ Andy raises his glass. ‘We’ve known for years but thanks anyway.’ Toby is chuckling now, shaking his head. ‘You’ve never said anything about it before.’ Andy says musingly.‘What’s it got to do with anything? Toby? Me? The price of apples? It’s his life.’Andy suddenly deflates, as if we’ve denied him the opportunity to deliver something he’s rehearsed. Toby asks ‘Is he happy?’Andy looks puzzled before saying ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you happy that he’s happy?’‘Yes…now that he’s found someone special…’ then with more conviction, ‘Yes I am.’We can tell he’s running memory videos in his head, the baby, the toddler, the boy, the man. He toys with his glass, as if focussing on it provides a meditative clarity. A frame in there somewhere makes him smile before, serious once more, he asks ‘So when did you first realise there was such a thing as homosexuality?’ That charred way of speaking again. Toby reaches for his pint, ‘You just do don’t you, not like it’s a specific time or thing.’‘It was for me.’ I say. ’Summer 1967. I was eleven, going on twelve.’ They look at me waiting, maybe imagining - Toby has a fondness for the salacious. I go on to tell them about acting in the film Oliver! Two choreographers over from America worked on set, Onna White and Tom Panko, putting us all through dance and music paces and drills. Onna had a smokey, serrated voice that cut right over, through and across the set and when she wasn’t elegantly demonstrating moves, she walked, talked and rested in a way I thought assertively mannish. Tom wore leggings, lacquered his hair and to my surprise when I spotted it, wore pink nail varnish. He had a soft but exaggerated way of speaking and was balletically graceful pretty much all the time. To my youthful mind, struggling with new to me notions of ambiguity, in this partnership, she seemed like the man and he like the woman; they were so different to all the men and women in my life until then. I remember looking around the set, at all the faces, seeking a sign - of mood, a way of understanding this - revelation. Nothing. Any such knowledge was clearly immaterial. They were just two professionals at the top of their game who everyone paid respect and attention to. The way they simply were didn’t matter to anyone else so it didn’t matter to me. ’I don’t know about ‘homosexual’, Tom was definitely differently different to the way Onna was, but what would I know anyway? In any event, it was then that I understood difference was just part of being, so it never got to be on any list of issues I might have had.’Andy and Toby are silent. I ask Andy ‘When was the last time you gave “number two son” a hug?’ He inhales deeply, sighs, shrugs, frowns, digs. ‘Do it today. Give him a hug. Give them both a hug. Give them a hug from me whilst you’re at it.’Home again, memories still wrapper crisp and shiny, I google Onna White and Tom Panko. When I read they are both now dead, it feels as if someone has dimmed a light inside me. Summer 1967, eleven going on twelve. I shut down the laptop, hoping Andy has been giving hugs.

35. Making connections

We’re off to some do to do with Toby’s Venn diagram membership of local business and social networks. I think I’m ready until Georgie comes downstairs looking chic, ‘Are you going like that, then?’‘Of course not!’ Time to smarten up my act.I’ve been dreading this - suit time. None of them fit me anymore, not without the guarantee of breathing difficulties and a hyperactive bladder. Actually, that’s not true, the linen suit fits. Crumpled or uncomfortable?One thing about not power dressing, it’s pretty good code for ‘Don’t bother asking me what I do’, especially in company that likes to ask that. Chuck in standing next to a potted palm with my G&T and suddenly, Georgie is escorting me briskly to an I need a word with you spot by the windows overlooking the golf course. I need the knitted tie rolled up in my pocket after all. I put it on to Georgie’s approval as she wonders what on earth possessed me to wear that suit. ‘Think Our Man in Havana, The Honorary Consul.’‘Under the Volcano? Circulate a bit.’I’m not simpatico with this kind of event, but it’s time to press some flesh. First up, big cufflink man, who also has a big hand that he uses to mangle and grind my smaller one. Some form of greeting, apparently. Hello stranger, welcome! Let me crush your hand! So I’ve taken refuge in chatting with this ancient worthy; it hasn’t been going well as I’m a little deaf and he’s a lot deaf. When I ask if he’s retired, I do so in a jokey way, as he looks as if he’s got a good twenty years of state pension behind him. But he goes dark, ‘You ignoramus!’ and huffs off. On my way for another G&T, I catch a few faces and the odd finger turning towards me. The ancient’s large grandson joins me at the bar, leans in close and whispers menacingly, ‘Why did you call my granddad retarded?’It didn’t help that I laughed because by the time I was able to explain it was ‘RETIRED not retarded!’ I could tell he thought I was wriggling rather than telling the truth and I got the feeling I was a marked man.At dinner, sat next to people I don’t know, I’m looking around; there’s not a few tuxedos and tans. I turn to the lady on my left, ’It’s like a James Bond convention here!’She swivels at me, but rather than her curious smile, my eyes are drawn to her pearl necklace, and below, settled in her emphatically deep cleavage, some crumbs and a small prawn.The vivid image of getting my face slapped for trying to oblige her Norman Wisdom style makes me laugh rather stupidly, but she joins in ‘So are you the villain!’ She has a chesty laugh but the crumbs and prawn cling on. I’ve already been on the wrong end of one misunderstanding so I try ‘I like your jewellery.’‘These things?’ she says, pressing a flat hand to her pearls.‘No, your other jewellery - your lower jewellery’Instead of looking where I want her to, she straightens her back ever so slightly and asks me if I’m ‘One of those villains?’I’m making a hash of it so I just tell her she has some food in her cleavage. She sorts it out then turns, pointing the cleavage somewhere else, like she was taking it away because I’d been looking at it for the wrong reason and wasn’t appreciative. Even though I was. Apart from throwing the occasional dagger, she blanks me for the rest of the meal. Except for the pudding. The laser-heated rhubarb crumble burned the shit out of my lip, I swore pretty loudly and called the ‘chef’ a very bad word. She looked at me then, and laughed, also probably for not right reasons.As soon as the post-prandial milling about starts, Georgie finds me and makes sure I know that everyone heard me swearing, that I’m being a shit guest, and that I’m probably, no, sure to be embarrassing poor Toby and Carol. Georgie’s usually right. I grab a paper napkin, write ‘OK to pretend not to know me’, hand it to her with a thumbs up and mill off for G&T. It was probably a dumb idea but I thought it inspired. On my way to the bar, big cufflink man beelines an intercept. ‘Sorry! I’ve forgotten…what did you say you do again?’‘I’m a gatecrasher.’‘Very good! Can I get you a drink?’

36. History and high prices

Andy is taking a laissez-faire approach to his rôle as umpire of the latest sociocultural jousting between Toby and me. We’ve both made impassioned appeals to him, but he’s Easter Island stony. It started innocuously enough with me offering Toby the FREE ENTRY tickets given to me by someone at his ‘do’. He expresses surprise that he wasn’t offered any, then says I don’t need to do that because of how I was on that occasion.‘It’s not for any of that, Toby but if they can double up, great. They’re for some country manor or stately pile but you won’t catch me visiting those places.’‘No?’‘No.’‘Why not? It’s your heritage.’‘I sincerely doubt those places have much to do with my heritage.’‘All that architecture, furniture, art, books - stuff you say you love; the history!’‘It’s just that. I can’t get past the history that’s made those places.’‘This is all about your class-war thing again, isn’t it? I don’t get it. You’ll deny yourself the opportunity to appreciate beautiful things just because of - who or what exactly?’‘What do you want to hear Toby? The usual suspects. The crown, the church, robber barons, grace and favour, slavery, pillage, exploitation, bondage, hundreds of thousands of acres of countryside…’‘Oh yes! The dastardly villains! Don’t be so ridiculous! They’re from another time! History! Gone! You need to look at it from here and now.’‘How’s here and now different? Some of the players may have changed but the stakes are the same. Do a bit of digging on the rich poor gap over ‘history’ and then tell me how gone it all is.’At this uncomfortably earnest hint of social economics, Toby says ‘But these tickets are free!’ ‘I’m not pragmatic enough, Toby. Maybe that’s a failing.’’It’s your loss!’ he replies, putting the tickets in his jacket pocket. Perhaps I should have offered them to Andy.Next time at The Dun Cow, Toby can’t wait to tell us what a good trip he and Carol had to Somethington Hall and he’s been going on about it in the spirit of windup. ‘You’d have loved it Andy, the house! The grounds! Nursery where you can buy estate grown plants; have a decent meal in the orangerie’. Toby hams 'orangerie' like a tickle in the ribs. But I’m not biting. Today’s tear off calendar wisdom was Never argue with a fool…people may not be able to tell you apart. The sudden assurance that Toby and me are both culpable serial offenders has sedated me. And anyway, Georgie bumped into Carol in town, and over coffee and Danish, Carol told Georgie what a rip-off place Toby had said it was, how he grumbled all the way home about the meal, the smell of fresh paint everywhere and paying over the odds for a shrub.Then Carol said ’I don’t know why he got so arsey about it. After all, it was free entry.’ When Georgie told me, I wondered if Carol’s words illustrated a peculiarly British schizoid pragmatism, one in which everything, past, present or future, can be accommodated. I should have given the tickets to Georgie and Carol.Toby gathers our glasses, saying to me ‘You missed out there!’ as he chuckles off to get a round in. Toby likes to fabulate me as someone who hung around tube stations selling the Morning Star or Socialist Worker; a ruinous drug-addled libertine, wearing sandals made from lentils. Naturally, in the spirit of dusty caricature, I talk about Toby as The Man. Somewhere in a mix of us, there might be a balanced, rational and occasionally wise person. But I guess we both feel the need to hold up our end.

37. Books and their covers

Hints of chocolate and coffee appeal to me and I opt for Stout from the The Dun Cow’s guest beers, Andy chooses the Ruby Ale. They have a flavour of autumn.‘Where’s Toby got to?’‘He’s gone back to one of those stalls for something he’s seen.’We’ve been in town ambling round the Victorian Steam Punk Fayre. The weather hasn’t been kind, gusty winds flapping awnings and snatching at the daintier merchandise and swirling mizzle into mists. We left Georgie, Carol and Olga, with their greater fortitude, weaving the pedestrianised streets and ‘Joining us later.’ We are halfway through our pints when Toby arrives, beaming and swinging a carrier bag. He donks it onto the table, ‘Gentlemen, let me entertain you.’ He fetches a square nine volt battery from the bag, grapples it from its packaging and holds it up, like a conjuror for us to view before standing it on the table. Then he produces a stylus with a little wire attached to something still in the bag, saying in Australian ‘Can you tell what it is yet?’A Stylophone quickly follows and Toby soon tinkers it into life, ‘Brilliant eh?’‘Rolf Harris has ruined it for me.’I turn to Andy, ’What are you talking about? It’s just metal and plastic.’‘The association…ruined it.’‘That doesn’t make sense, the Stylophone’s done nothing wrong.’‘OK so it’s shocking about Rolf Harris,’ Toby says, ‘but how can he ruin a Stylophone for you?’‘As soon as I heard it, I thought about him, and all the harm done…’‘But before we all knew about that, before it got inside your head, I bet you thought he was A1 talented.’‘But Toby, when we do know, it changes how you see them and everything they did.’‘How?’ I ask.‘Just does. Don’t tell me it doesn’t for you.’I think of Michael Moore’s ambush of Charlton Heston and his ‘Cold dead hands’ take on the right to bear arms, of Woody Allen’s familial accusations, of Roman Polanski, and admit that despite any attempt to rationalise otherwise, it does. ‘But..’ I say ‘…I still can’t deny the beauty of Tristan and Isolde’s Liebestod even though I know it’s come from the mind of an anti-semite’.‘Who…?’‘Wagner.’’Wagner!’ exclaims Toby, ‘One of my favourites!’ and before we can further explore the contradictions in art and artist, he launches into a bum-clenching but recognisable Stylophonic rendition of The Ride of the Valkyries. Conversation in The Dun Cow drops, then the door opens with perfect timing and a large, splendidly Steam-Punked man steps in, pauses, points at Toby as he’s finishing with a flourish and says in loud and exaggerated Glaswegian ‘APOCALYPSE NOO!’Above the spontaneous laughter and cheers, we gesture him to join us. Steam-Punk Archie is waiting for someone too and we initiate a joyous mutual mayhem of miscommunication, unintelligibility and Stylophone AltFest, razzed along by guest ales and whiskey. Archie is a partner in an accountancy firm, so naturally we take the piss out of him when he frets that he’s been short-changed for a round when he hasn’t. When Toby wobbles upright to really work the intro to Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water, Archie joins him with swinging axe air guitar. They are enjoying their standing ovation, Toby holding his Stylophone aloft when Archie’s non-partner partner and steam-punk amour enters, ‘Hello pet, who’s your friend?’ Toby grabs and kisses her hand, ’Tobiass Orlando, styloph-onisst to the shtars.’’Thank Christ you’re not Rolf Harrish.’

38. Trick or Treat

I reckon Andy only works properly in the light half of the year. It’s round about the anniversary of when he duffed up the garden centre Christmas displays for being too early. Now it’s Halloween winding him up.‘They’ve been round already, four foot tall trick or treat gangsters wearing mugger masks, knocking on our door, trying it on. I tell them to get lost but Olga gets worried they’ll key the car or trample the plants if they don’t get something. So she gives them a couple of sweets or a little bar of chocolate and they look at her as if she’s just given them a cat turd.’Toby shakes his head, ’I blame the parents.’ This makes me laugh, ’Toby, if ever you send a ransom note, it’ll be old school - newspaper clippings from the Daily Mail stuck to paper with brown glue from one of those bottles with a bendy rubber tip’.Toby looks at me as if I’ve just offered him a cat turd, ‘He-llo!? We’re talking about Halloween here.’‘And parents, apparently.’‘Well, what if it was your kids out terrorising the neighbourhood, no, wait, somebody else’s neighbourhood with Trick or Treat demands?’‘Mine used to go out on Halloween, it was a thing for them and their mates, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all the rest of the U.S. shows that spooked things up around that time, I suppose.’‘That’s it!’ Andy sparks, ‘We never used to do all this stuff here until all those Yank shows got an airing, same as all that poxy prom night stuff they’re doing now!’Toby gets animated, ’Our whole culture is being taken over!’Standing to get my round in, I say ’It’s about making money, merchandising, profiteering, stiffing you, using your kids to relieve you of your ackers, that’s the culture, and we’ve had a big hand in making it what it is.’ When I return with our pints, Toby asks me in a calculated way, ‘Cheers! So what do you do when they come calling expecting a handout?’‘We don’t get them where we live now but at our previous house, Georgie and me agreed a way. We had old double wrought iron gates that would sometimes get stuck, wedged against each other. I was for making sure they were wedged so people couldn’t get to our door, Georgie said that was mean so we put a notice on the door that read Please don’t knock after nine - Thanks.’‘Did it work?’‘Very well as it happens.’‘Maybe there’s hope after all.’‘There’s always hope but I went out about half-seven and made sure the gates were wedged.’‘That’s a bit devious!’ Andy laughs.‘Win win, as they say.’‘Except for the trick or treaters!’ he prods.‘Well, it’s the rabid commercialisation of these events that irks me rather than the events themselves.’ I reply.‘The thing itself is pagan in origin anyway. Why should we make a thing of that!?’’Takes all sorts Toby.’ I say. ‘I rather like the idea of a culture where the seasons are visceral, of darker nights and elemental forces before gas, electricity and double glazing.’‘Well I’m glad to have mine, and Toby’s right, Halloween is pagan in origin and we’re still a Christian nation.’‘You can’t really believe that Andy!’‘Yes I can and I do!’ Andy stands up, removes his jacket, undoes his shirt almost to the waist so that he can slide it off his left shoulder where he has a Sacred Heart tattoo.‘I never knew you had that!’ Toby exclaims, turning to me genuinely surprised, ’Did you?’‘No but it’s just a tattoo, it’s not proof of faith.’ And I stand up, take my jumper off and hoisting up the sleeve of my T-shirt reveal a larger tattoo, on my right shoulder, of the Green Man.Toby looks from one to the other of us and says ‘I’m C of E...and I haven’t got any tattoos.’‘Anyhow’ Andy says putting his jacket back on and settling down with his beer, ‘Halloween may have pagan origins but it’s been civilised, eh Toby?’ Toby nods. ‘Here’s to All Hallows Eve.’’To Samhain.’ I toast.Andy is irritated with me. ’So when was the last time you worshipped whatever you pagans worship?’‘I didn’t say I was a pagan Andy, I just have a tattoo, like you. But I walked the dog in the woods this morning. When did you last go to confession?’‘Politics and Religion fellas,’ says Toby, ‘They’re killers.’

39. Economix

Toby has had a trip and fall in the street and his left arm is strapped up. He’s telling us he’s considering suing the council with a no win no fee personal injury mob. I call them and their ilk parasites, preying on the sniping thought that ‘I’ve got nothing to lose!’‘Well I haven’t have I?’‘You’re suing yourself! Where do you think the money comes from?’‘No!’ Toby says, taking a swig and smacking his lips, ‘I’m only suing a little tiny bit of me. All the massive rest of it isn’t from me.’‘So how does that make it OK?’’It’s worth it!’‘It’s not! You’ll be robbing your neighbour!’‘Well…I don’t like him, anyway.’I have to laugh, but in my book, Toby seems to have acquired some kind of capitalist nihilism and I head off into a despondent rant about how tawdry everything is getting, ‘It’s nail bars, cash converters, charity shops, hairdressers, takeaways, betting shops, more charity shops, tanning parlours, talent shows, 50 shades of lottery, you’re fired now fuck off shows, no win no fee. Luck, litigation and titillation. Without them knowing it, the aspirations of a generation are being impoverished.’‘It must be horrible for you, not being able to get to speaker’s corner.’‘Listen…’ Andy says.Toby needs to finish, swigs his beer sternly, ‘You should get one of them sandwich boards, get yourself up and down the high street.’‘Listen…’, Andy holds up a small publication. Toby brings Andy’s hand closer to his face, ‘On Your Doorstep?’Andy checks, ’Your Local Classified Directory. Yes. Whilst you two were talking your usual crap, I was having a look at this. There’s someone here whose business is bumping moles off…’Toby and me are puzzled.‘...mole exterminator.’Toby and me are attentive. ‘Says he does it humanely and all that, nice presentation, even got his own little crest. But…how does he get the edge over the competition, all those other mole killers scrambling for business?’‘Go on.’‘No mole - no fee.’And he shows us the ad and it’s true. As Andy and me burst out laughing, Toby beams, ’If I’ve got moles, what can I lose?’

40. Toilette

I don’t know how the conversation between Andy and Toby got here but Andy is maybe giving away too much information.‘I was standing there, nothing happening. Then I think, I can’t be arsed, drop everything and sit down. Mind wanders. I’m sitting there, waiting to piss.’’So you could be arsed after all.’Andy turns to Toby with distaste, ‘Used to be I could whip it out, whoosh!’Toby flinches. ’Whoosh?’‘I could have pressure washed patios.’‘What do you mean, whoosh!?’‘Now I’m sitting waiting, mind wandering. Time getting at me. Even when it comes to something like pissing. I mean, of all things! It’s gone from stand up, whip it out, whoosh!…’‘…to sit down, dangle and wait. Unlucky mate! You need to warm it up, give it a rub.’‘Give it a rub!?’‘Get the wrinkles out, get the blood flowing.’‘You’re talking about wanking!’‘Maybe for you, Andy. I was talking about pissing. Anyway, what’s with the whoosh! business?’I calm the waters, ’Is this the retiree take on the Jules and Vincent foot massage conversation?’One tick - one tock, calm over, Andy looks at me and says, ‘OK, hand on heart, Gospel, tell me you can piss as well as you used to.’‘Hand on dick, I can’t.’‘More but less,’ Toby empathises, ‘Especially at night. Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. Half waking up each time.’ ‘Crap sleep’ Andy adds, ‘But what can you do? When you gotta go…’‘You don’t have to do that.’ I say, ‘I mean, you can cut down on the half asleep backward and forwards bit.’‘How?’‘By using a piss pot.’Toby cracks up, ‘’You use a piss pot!?‘Yes.’‘Seriously? I bet it’s an antique or some poncey hand blown glass job knowing you.’‘It’s a venerable tradition, beloved of Hogarth, and it’s a milk bottle.’Andy starts laughing as Toby stops.’Simple.’ I explain, ‘Dreamland, urge to piss, get up, milk bottle, cap off, todger, urge-off, cap on get back in bed, dreamland.’‘A milk bottle!’ Toby is pantomiming the mechanics.‘One of those plastic ones from the supermarket. I’m not guaranteeing it’s a unisex solution.’‘Speaking of which, what does Georgie have to say?’ Andy asks.‘She used to say, I wish I could do that. Now she says it’s a bit eccentric.’‘Well isn’t it?’ Toby laughs.‘Not on it’s own.’ I suggest.‘Sounds like a practical and romantic alternative,’ Andy says, ‘Any other drawbacks?’Maybe I’ve given away too much information.

41. Christmas crackers

The Dun Cow is showing signs of Christmas, not least Toby, who is trying to sign Andy and me up to ordering some pricey Christmas crackers in aid of some cause he’s pushing. Andy says he doesn’t rate Christmas crackers because of the hats. Toby and me provide the ellipsis then Andy tells us about a long gone lovely Christmas lunch with the family, having pull cracker-bang!-toy-joke-hat fun and then his hat catching light on a candle. ’They said they didn’t notice because the hat was the same colour and shape as the flames. Sure! Nearly all gone by the time someone shouted. Got some blisters and a singe round my head…like a monk.’Appreciating Andy’s flashback, Toby advises ‘You’re supposed to save flambeauing for the Christmas pudding.’Andy twitches a smile, he knows how to milk schadenfreude - ‘Ruined Christmas…’ then deadpans as we laugh.When we stop, Toby says ‘So! That explains the ‘too early for Christmas meltdown’ reason you gave for smashing up the Christmas display at the garden centre…’Andy is weary of us reminding him of this misdemeanour and offers Toby cocked head with sardonic sprinkles.‘The psychology, the deep background…you know what Freud would have said, Andy?’‘Nobody knows what Freud would have said, Toby’‘Can you guess what Freud would have said?’’Something to do with my parents.’‘He would have said you were trying to get your own back…’ ‘On my parents...’‘…on a paper hat.’‘Or maybe monks…’ I add.Toby likes a challenge. ’Anyway Andy, that trauma is long gone…’ he winks at me ‘…you can still buy the crackers, just don’t wear the hat.’‘Then I’d be called a grouch or a scrooge or something.’’So what’s not even buying any crackers for Christmas then?’Toby rubs his hands together as Andy caves in and signs up, ‘Good man!’ - looks at me.’Sign me up for two.’Toby beams. ’Expecting a crowd?’I explain no, Georgie and me have decided to have Christmas day to ourselves for the first time in fourteen years.’So why all the crackers?’‘I want two - two crackers.’’Two! They come in boxes of a dozen!’‘You’re missing out on a market segment there Toby. Why would Georgie and me want a dozen crackers?’‘That’s the way it works.’‘I can sell you two.’ Andy says.‘Enterprise!’ I say, ‘How much?’‘Wait a minute…’‘Cost.’‘Done.’‘Wait a minute, what about your contribution to fundraising?’‘But I only want two, maybe zero but as it’s you selling them Toby…’‘OK’ Toby says, ‘the best I can do for the price is buy two get ten free.’ then deadpans as I laugh.

42. The OK to be Pink again Panther

Toby is freshly joyful and keeps singing There Is Nothing Like a Dame.Andy keeps adding ’Tune!’ in a mocking, down with the kids way. I guess I should try and join in.‘Rogers and…’‘Hammerstein, South Pacific.’ Andy finishes for me.Toby smiles enigmatically, ’Morecambe and Wise Christmas show.’Comedy not being what it was, Toby has come out loud and proud analog grainy retro after dusting off his old VHS player. He and Carol have been cuddling and laughing it up on the couch to tapes of Morecambe and Wise extravaganzas.On hearing this, Andy step kicks into Morecambe and Wise appreciation with Toby. Whilst they do fond recall, I find myself not getting them all over again. That is, I did get them but didn’t find them that funny, and what I really didn’t get, is why so many people did. When I share this, Toby cites my not getting M&W as an example of why ‘I’m a bit weird.’It’s Toby. I like Toby, so I let it ride. But I couldn’t stop myself judging Toby’s view as being from a very deep crack. My memory tripped into EuroTrash and the work colleague who seemed genuine in his concern that Lola would defy airline and insurance warnings, and risk her implants exploding at altitude during an airline trip to bigger things. So was that ‘my humour’?As Toby goes on to reveal with a curator’s relish that South Pacific was given the M&W treatment in 1977, the Pistols opening God Save The Queen starts in my head. I recall ladder-climbing through a trapdoor to lay on my gran’s day-warm roof, seeing and hearing the fireworks honouring the Thames and Her Maj. ‘I was there!’ Toby says, ‘celebrating with the crowds’. Close, but I was drawn to the anti-establishment swell generated by the Jubilee; it may have been the last time I truly believed I might be part of something that wasn’t the same as the usual something. ‘But I like that Comedy came out of it stroppier, refused to offer set-piece comfort.’‘Like The Young Ones!?‘Touché Andy, you’re right. Any zeitgeist that hints at profit soon gets adopted and taught manners.’‘You don’t really find much funny, do you?’ Toby asks.‘Thinking about it Toby, I find most physical comedy - you know, bumping into each other, pratfalls and gurning - unfunny.’‘Like what?’‘Like…Dad’s Army for example’.Toby takes a deep breath but Andy gets in first with ’Have you been watching Dad’s Army as well?’‘So what?! Go on! Have a laugh! What about Inspector Clouseau? I suppose you’re going to tell me he was unfunny’‘I had to discard a stylish trench coat and trilby look because of Clouseau.’‘I’m sure the nation would be devastated to know their favourite comedies made getting dressed difficult for you.’‘Then that ‘Ooh Betty!’ prat did for me wearing a beret instead. Too much slapstick for me Toby. Buster Keaton already did it and much better. A woman I once worked with revealed to me the difference between funny and witty. I like more witty, less funny.’‘Sounds elitist to me.’‘I don’t mind missing things too clever for me.’‘I take it you’re not interested in borrowing any tapes after Andy?’’No thanks Toby, we haven’t had a player for years.’Toby casts me adrift, ’I thought everyone our age had a player and a load of VHS tapes tucked away somewhere.’Andy, drinking, thumbs-up.’I chose Betamax.’Andy and Toby laugh. Maybe all humour is just about taking the chair away at the right moment.

43. Culture Club

Toby is late and nearing the end of our second pint I wonder aloud whether he’s going to turn up. Andy tells me I have been removed from Toby’s Christmas card list and put on his shit list because ‘Your facetiousness has cost us the title’, the title in question being Annual Charity Quiz Champions 2017. Against his better judgement (as he later insists) Toby asked me to be on his team. Against my better judgement, I accepted. Quizzes can be a bit of fun but Toby is hyper-competitive and adheres to the view ‘There’s first and nowhere’. Added to the principle reason for my invitation being ’You might be good for some of the arty-farty questions’ and the quiz being a Conservative Club affair, I was maybe unwise not to heed my misgivings. But Georgie jollied me up and Andy flattered me by saying I would be an asset. So I resolved to set aside preconceptions and spend the evening in generous spirit, a resolution soon tested when Toby, handing over our twenty pounds a head tickets chuckles with satisfaction at my moue when he reveals that ten percent is going to be donated to Tory party funds. He escorts us to a reserved table and assists the ‘Laydeeze’ into their seats before sitting me beneath a portrait of Margaret Thatcher - so he can take snaps. It’s becoming clear just how much of Toby’s obvious enjoyment is at my expense.‘One for the album!’Carol admonishes him gently, Andy, Olga and Georgie laugh heartily. Pursing my lips, I look at the portraits ranged about the room, Tory Prime Ministers and grandees, last century Aldermen, and the biggest one, the Queen from earlier days, in a white full-length dress with Order of the Garter sash, sparkling jewellery and crown, standing before a blaze in a white marble fireplace. As Toby departs to get drinks, handshakes, backslaps and admiration for the satin blueness of his tie, Andy looks at me, shrugs and smiles. I think arty-fartily of Homer’s poetry and keep my words ‘behind the barrier of my teeth’.A fifteen-minute warning is given for the start of the quiz and the bar gets busier still. On time to the sound of a bell the quiz begins. The quizmaster is a well-dressed and spoken man of about our age with a patrician air who appears to be intermittently distressed when Hot Chocolate’s Every One’s a Winner is played between rounds whilst answer sheets are collected. I prove to be pretty ineffectual, remembering things too late and taking rambling mental detours. I make a few genuinely helpful contributions but am particularly useless at current TV program references. However, it seems the competitiveness I deny having has been prodded grumpily awake. I thought I was relaxed about Toby putting it over on me as I believe what comes round goes round and this was TobyTime. So I was surprised at the flourish of minor mischief in a couple of answers the team turned to me for…‘The eighteenth century composer notorious for seducing the divas in his operas?’‘Rameau.’‘The sixteenth century artist who painted portraits with features comprised of fruit and vegetables?’‘Cabaggio.’Cabaggio won ’Honorary mention for best silly answer’, which mortified Toby as team captain taking unwanted applause whilst the rest of us laughed. We came second, which without even knowing whether we were within touching distance of first, infuriated Toby, his ears staying roaring red long after the rest of his complexion had regained a calmer colour. My smartphone incompetence meant that I missed snapping his redness in front of a shiny David Cameron.When Andy spots him entering the pub he waves, ’Here he is.’Toby looks deadly serious before plonking a jar of sauerkraut in front of me. I’ve come prepared too and present the bright red woven tie I got from a charity shop for him. As we share an all’s well laugh, Andy asks ‘Where’s my present then?’I get my wallet out, find and give him the Monopoly Get Out of Jail Free card that’s been waiting for the right moment.As Toby and me notch up the laugh, Andy says ’Well, you might be off Toby’s shit list but now you’re on mine. Cheers.’

44. We'll all be millionaires!

We’re at The Dun Cow, early dropouts from the ‘Lets all get it done in one, it’ll be fun’ Christmas shopping expedition. Strain began to show when valid opinions during a what candle? discussion were deemed U S and after a meaningful moment of tuning in, Olga, Carol and Georgie jointly invited us to bugger off to the pub so we did.The guest ale turns out to be a bit thin and flat and we haven’t been enjoying it for long when Toby asks me if I could ring Carol for him as he’s left his phone on charge at home. I fumble about so Toby takes my phone from me and within seconds he’s talking to Carol. When he hands it back he says what I need is a phone with one button, so simple even an idiot like me could use it, ‘A Stonerphone!’ He starts laughing at his quip but pulls up short with a light bulb floating above his head. ‘A phone so simple, even a stoner can use it! - We could make a fortune!’Toby has been surfing an optimistic wave of entrepreneurial free-thinking lately, triggered by his hopes of the next-phase Brexit talks. When we started likening him to Del Boy he was quick to point out he was more upmarket and edgy, more a Dyson-Dell Boy. But I’m still surprised when his spiel rapidly gets to - ‘Test of concept! We go back to yours, you roll the smokes, we get the effect, start designing the phone.’‘Dragon’s Den!’ Andy says mysteriously, and I suddenly see they are both looking at me both not joking.Toby - ’Have you got some at home?’I nod.Andy - ’Beers?’‘Yep.’And they’re standing up, leaving their drinks. I’ve often thought this occasion would arise but now it has, the circumstance takes me by surprise. I am about to say something but disclaimers would be hypocritical, weaselly and probably pointless. I tell myself off, stand up too and send out a wish for harmony.

I get beers from the bit of the house that’s a notch up from warm fridge, gather glasses and my paraphernalia. We get a log fire going and sit round drinking and smoking, chatting and feeding the fire. Andy went a bit pale and quiet for a spell, the ideas pencil and paper lay idle and we’d pretty much forgotten about phone design when he suddenly chirps up ‘Whatever happened to those Blackberries?’‘I had one of those…and it’s the complete opposite of my concept, think of that as the negative to our positive. Have you got anything to eat?’Andy scratches his belly, ‘I’m feeling a bit peckish too.’Effects dialled on the Blueberry.

So we’re in the tiny kitchen, drinking Bloody Marys, Toby going macho with Tabasco. We’ve rifled the cupboards, fridge and freezer trying to agree on something tasty and we’re standing around, losing time laughing at the serving suggestions when I say ‘Stop!’ and point at Toby, ‘Get the Stonerphone! Ring out for some grub!’Toby looks at me in a way I think I must look to him.‘Design phase! One-button phone - what do you do? - it’s in your hand - get it sorted! I’ll get the pencil and paper.’Toby looks at his hand and the lightbulb returns. ‘I’ve got a better idea! I’ll call Carol and ask if she can swing by The Taj, she’s a brilliant orderer!’The outside light comes on and we suddenly notice there’s someone at the door and that it’s dark out there. It’s Georgie with Carol and Olga and they’re carrying bags. As soon as I open the door Georgie says ’You’ve been smoking. Did you get my text?’‘No…I mean yes, probably - I haven’t looked at my phone.’As they squash in and jam up the narrow chilly hallway, peering into the tiny fuggy kitchen, Georgie says ‘I texted to say we were coming back here! Why didn’t you light the candles? - (Your eyes have gone funny) - What’s the point of having a mobile?’‘Exactly!’ Toby declares, waving a tin of sardines in tomato sauce at Carol, ’The indispensable passport to modern living! I was just calling you.’‘You left your phone at home.’‘He looks fondly at the tin, ’On the Stonerphone - The phone with just one button - That even an idiot can use…’Georgie and Carol ignore Toby pointing at me and share a look. Olga’s felt reindeer antlers flash as she calls out from the back ‘Have you been smoking too, Andy?’Andy doesn’t answer because he’s laughing at the serving suggestion on a packet of cornflour.

45. Sweeney

Staring intently at The Dun Cow’s familiar-seeming ‘Happy New Year To All Our Customers’ banner over the bar, Toby dismisses 2018 as ‘Just another traitor’. Toby is glum, hit hard in the philosopho-plexus how everything can be so the same when it’s all a year older, ’Where’s that year gone? What have I done with it? What have we done with it?’‘We used it up.’‘Doing what? What’s the point of it all?’Andy leans forward and wags a finger in Toby’s face, ‘What have I told you about reading Sartre!’Toby grims a smile, ‘But what is the point?’‘What if the point is wondering what the point is?’Toby adds dismay to glum when he looks at me, ‘That’s just…circular bullshit.’‘The cowpat proposition’ Andy observes. Not a twitch. His bonhomie glazes, ‘Toby, who gives a toss what the point is? Enjoy!’ he swigs a lot of beer in one go - ‘Your round!’I lean forward and wag a finger in Andy’s face, ‘What have I told you about reading Omar Khayyam!’Toby’s response to our mirth is a solemn trip to the bar. Andy and me wonder together about Toby’s ups and downs. ‘Do you think he might be a bit manic-depressive?’‘Andy, manic-depressive is not the preferred nomenclature. Bipolar, please.’ My point, reference and John Goodman accent all fail to impress. ‘Anyway,’ I add with no hint of cleverness, ‘Is that something you get just a bit of?’ and wonder more seriously and privately about Toby’s ups and downs.When Toby returns with drinks, his comes in a bottle with some fruit in the neck.‘Bit late for a mid-life crisis isn’t it?’ Andy says, with a nod at Toby’s drink. Andy’s boot camp approach to finding out what’s up/down closes Toby. I try to offer him some support but miscue, ’He might live to be really old.’‘I won’t make old bones’ Toby says prophet of doom style.I ask him ‘Buried or cremated?’ The bottle pauses on its way to his lips ‘Whiskey! Tango! Foxtrot!’‘Pardon?’ I say, bemused.‘What’s buried or cremated got to do with it? I’ll be dead!’‘Everything to do with it - how old your bones get.’‘You know, the way your mind works…’‘Well, at least it hasn’t trashed 2018 a few days in! What’s all this traitor, bones and stuff with you?’We’re a triptych of irritated body language and facial expressions. I get up and leave the pub then surprise Andy and Toby into silence when I return after a deep take of dark fresh air composure and smiling say ‘Hello chaps! Happy New Year! Cocktails?’Toby inhales deeply before he says ‘I’m selling Sweeney.’ Sweeney Todd, Toby’s devotedly restored Jaguar Mk II.‘Why?’’To a downsizing film-fan from Coventry.’‘Why?’‘Morse fan?’‘Withnail and I.’I try a third time, ‘Why?’‘What’s the point of keeping it?’Andy takes Toby’s bottle away, ‘I’ll get you a drink.’ I cannot think of any unliving thing in my life whose ‘loss’ would similarly affect me and am relieved to think Toby’s douleur is caused by just a car, even though it’s one he has a passion for.‘How’s Carol?’Toby looks at me and his eyes suddenly film shiny wet and I know it’s not about the car.

46. Sixteenth Night

We’ve toasted Carol’s health, having heard all about her scare and subsequent all-clear. NowI’m toasting Toby’s epiphany.Last time we saw Toby, Carol was waiting for test results ‘Cool as a cucumber’ and his anxietyavalanche had got him banished from the house ’So she could have some peace!’Now he reveals that not only did he sell his car, even though he didn’t need the money for ‘Caroleventualities’ after all, he’s given twenty percent of what he got for it to breast cancer charities. Iwant to give him a hug but he won’t stand up to oblige me.’So the NHS came through for you.’ I say, sitting down again.‘Certainly did!’‘Thats’s good to know, we haven’t got much we could sell in the event of eventualities.’Andy asks ‘What made you go through with the sale when you didn’t need to?’Toby puts his beer down and gives the glass a quarter turn, taking the beer mat with it. ’All thetime I was trying to think positive, thinking the worst came too - and I felt utterly powerless.Useless. I was even thinking I’m supposed to pop my clogs first aren’t I? Like it was a donedeal. And everything became a pile of crap. Some of it fancy, some expensive, some withmemories but all still crap if I couldn’t have Carol.’Andy honours what he considers a respectful enough silence then says ’So now you know youcan have Carol, what about all the crap? Does it return to its substantive post?’‘Nope. Once it’s crap, it’s crap, there’s no going back.’’So the Jag?’ I prompt.‘That was the epitome, the acme, the capo di tutti crappo of all that stuff, stuff I valued thatbecame worthless overnight.’‘But you loved that car!’ Andy is still unconvinced.‘Not like I love Carol. Got to be honest, I feel a bit ashamed it took this to wake me up, bring meback from La-La land.’Andy is done with silences now he’s got the facts, ’Seeing how things turned out, I still don’t seewhy you had to sell it.’‘Andy, I didn’t have to sell it, I didn’t need to sell it, I wanted to sell it.’‘I reckon you’ll regret it.’‘I won’t. I’ve crossed the bridge, I’ve crossed the Rubicon casting my die, finito, that’s it!’‘Here’s to Toby Mark Two!’Toby chinks my glass heavily, ‘I threw in all the bits and pieces, tools, spares, oils, fluids, rightdown to touch-up paint and cleaning gear - even my special lambswool gloves...’‘You used to put me in mind of James Bond when I saw you rubbing the Jag with your furrygloves.’Toby does a little endorphin, ‘Thunderball!’‘That’s it!’ I didn’t tell him it was just the gloves.

There’s a hint of mischief in Andy’s ‘What’ll you do with yourself now?’ But this is post-enlightenment Toby, and he won’t take the bait, ’I’ll focus on things that matter, that have real

value. What’ll I do with myself now? I’ll try and make up for all that stupid waste of time andeffort - on a car! And I’ll transfer it - to Carol.’I rest a hand on his shoulder, ‘Does she like waxing and buffing?’ Snapflash far-off focus and awistful smile stop Toby replying and tell me he has run away with the image. He picks up hishalf-full pint with beer mat attached, and knocks it back. ‘See you later.’Andy protests, ‘Going already!?’‘Got to get home.’ then with a light-up smile, ‘Tell Carol I love her.’‘Remember the book club Toby!’ I call after him.‘Book club?’‘You know, showing and telling...?’‘No, I don’t...remind me later.’ And he’s gone.Andy turns to me, a saucy seaside postcard face, ‘Do you think he’ll show her?’

‘You can never tell with Toby.’

47. Keep taking the tabloids.

It’s dusk. I’m standing on our threshold smoking a herbal smoke and letting the cold in. Behindme the radio is giving up hard news and bleak prospects in crystal clear sound. Two big blackflapslow birds pass darkwards overhead, and I come over all shard-borne beetley. Georgie isout. Dog’s walked, Cat’s fed. The rain trying to be snow has another go but I wrap up, leavelights and radio for the animali, grab the paper and leave Dunsinane for the Dun Cow.Toby keeps his crenellated Mailness in siege-proof readiness and I’ve construed this warinessas a compliment to my Guardianista bombards. But today, sharply spotting a folded tabloid inmy coat pocket as soon as I enter, he decides to drop the drawbridge and sally forth before I’veeven sat down, ‘What’s with the rag - slumming it?’‘They’re all rags Toby, some tattier than others.’ and I hand him my paper.‘It’s the Guardian! What happened to all that "Ich bin ein Berliner” then?’I can’t think of a riposte that doesn’t reference cutting costs. Toby hands me back my paper andsmugs, ’How the mighty are fallen!’, then jauntily, ‘Same old lefty stuff though?’‘Absolutely. Still revelling in socialist filth and bottomless photos. But prettier. And withhighlighted text for the wandering of mind.’‘Being for instance, you.’‘Yeah, they got me, I took out a subscription.’ Andy saves me with an immaculate pint of stout incrisp black and white. I’m savouring it as Toby continues prowling, ‘Where do you get yournews, Andy?’‘I try to avoid it.’‘But you must know what’s going on!’‘Why must I?’‘Because it’s important to know about what’s going on in the world.’‘Maybe to you, I don’t mind not knowing, probably prefer it.’‘So TV, radio...?’‘When I catch it maybe, I don’t tune in for it.’‘So how can you properly take part in discussions for instance? How can you be a citizen if youknow nothing about current affairs? It’s irresponsible!’‘It’s me exercising my freedom of choice.’Toby gets animated and starts pointing. ’So you choose not to be informed? You shouldn’t beallowed to vote!’‘I don’t.’‘That’s...even more irresponsible!’‘Not if he shouldn’t be allowed...’ I suggest, ‘...then it’s responsible.’Toby swats that idiot contribution.‘Or counterintuitively realises that he’s irresponsible and doesn’t think it would be responsible tovote.’ He gives me two fingers for that one and mustering profound disappointment turns toAndy, ‘Is there anything that would make you vote?’Yes. If I could vote for none of the above.’Toby does a kind of sitting down haka, ‘Brilliant Andy! And what if none of the above getselected?’‘That’s proper feedback.’‘Incredible! Here’s a man who won’t vote for anything unless he can vote for nothing. Sort thatone out! What are you then, a nihilist or something?’I’m tempted but keep shtum. Andy goes for his inside pocket. ‘You’re not getting Omar Khyyamout again! That’s your answer for everything!’Andy is no little pleased to confound Toby with a flourish of Old Moore’s Almanack, ‘I’m afraidyou’re wrong Dick Dimbleby, I go there for the deep stuff when I feel stuck, but for the rest...’ hewaggles the Old Moore’s.I start laughing as Toby channels John McEnroe you can’t be seriousness.‘Unlike you two and your news lot...’ Andy says waving at us dismissively, ‘...everyone whoreads this knows they’re a mug!’

Toby is simultaneously stymied and exasperated and resorts to violent formal, ’I object to yourpigeonholing!’I gather the glasses, ’Yeah, up yours Andy! Toby knows he’s a mug...what are we having?’

48. The bloke at the bar

We’ve just got back to our seats, exchanging glances and smiles, relieved that the bloke at the bar has left. Andy and Toby clunk their wallets and phones on the table before settling their beers. How much of their owners’ lives might they reveal - with profiling as the cop shows might say? Andy’s black wallet is also an organiser, tabbed with garish colours, and looks quite thick, for a wallet. Toby’s is nearly twice as thick, a tan billfold of heavily embossed leather that creaks with tensile energy. When I wonder aloud why they don’t just get manbags and have done with it, they tell me to put mine on the table and I say ‘I can’t’.‘Can’t or won’t?‘Can’t. I use pockets - and a clip.’’Show us then!’ Toby delightedly declares my money clip to be irrefutable and conclusive proof of poncedom.‘It’s travelling lighter. Anyway, I thought you said you used your phone for everything now.’‘There’s still times you need cash or a card. Keep a receipt…’‘A photo!’ The sarcasm Andy puts into “a photo” reflects his and Toby’s sudden affectation of paterfamilias alarm that I don’t carry any photos of my family with me.‘Not even on your phone!?’ And that even if there were, I didn’t have my phone on me, and if I did I wouldn’t be showing them round the pub.‘What about us?’ Andy asks.‘What do you want to see them for?’‘For interest, just being friendly. People like to see photos of family…’’Sort of sharing the common bond.’ Toby adds, to Andy’s approval.‘Well, I don’t really want to see pictures of other people’s husbands, wives, partners, children, pets or whatever, they’re almost always uninteresting and boring so why would I inflict mine on them?’‘Uninteresting and boring you say?’‘Yes. And I find it hard to feign interest.’Andy shakes his head, sotto laugho. Toby draws himself up, ‘Do much feigning, do you?’‘You know what I mean.’‘Like maybe when we showed you our Christmas photos?’‘I can’t speak for Georgie…listen! Don’t tell me you’re Mr Sincere!’‘I’ll have you know I AM sincere!’‘Even when the bloke at the bar insisted on showing us those pictures of his family?’‘You couldn’t get away from that bloke at the bar.’ Andy remarks.‘What about it?’‘You saying stuff like aren’t they lovely and you’re a lucky man!’’So?’‘Well if they were lovely and he was lucky, I must be blessed - they all looked like they’d been dropped from the Bash Street pages of The Beano! I think I’ll go round showing strangers proper made-up dodgy-looking family photos and say they’re mine, just to hear sincere variations on how lucky I am.’‘Maybe that’s what the bloke at the bar was doing.’ Andy remarks.‘What was I supposed to say then? You can’t just come out with whatever you’re thinking!’‘I know. Because you don’t want to give offence, I understand. And I’m certain they’re lovely to him and good luck to them all. But when you’re trying not to burst out laughing or fall comatose as your first reaction it’s hard to feign interest. So I’d rather not see them in the first place.’Toby only jokes I should be put on a watchlist (Q. ’What sort!?’ A. ’Iffy!’) ‘What about for yourself, then?’ Andy asks, big finger and thumb delicately pinching a photo from his wallet. Toby and me lean in to look. The photographer at whatever do it was has caught her turning; curious, piercing - collar and cheek bones playing with light and shadow. Olga looked standout. Glam. ’Stunning!’ Toby says. ‘Isn’t that a great photo?’ he prompts, and I’m sincere when I agree.‘I’m proud of that.’ Andy says, pleased by our appreciation as he returns Olga to his wallet.Olga from another era, I’m guessing in her twenties. And another reason why I lack affinity with photos is box-checked - the rolling back of years to when there were more of them with more promise - and look how young you look! I can like the way things were too, but now they’re the way they are. So I carry all who I love with me and can see them whenever I want, just like they were when I last saw them; which is how I like it. And sure, I get mellow with recall but that’s a feeling I like to hug to myself. I’m sure they would get all that but now’s not the time to say it. ’Your a lucky man, Andy!’ Toby gives me an about time too look and agrees with me.‘Cheers!’ we chime, by way of sharing the common bond.I blame the bloke at the bar.

49. Half emptiful glass.

When Andy and me fetch our drinks from the bar Toby closes his book and places it just so on the table next to his half. So I get that we're supposed to see it's The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy and I’m about to take due interest when Andy picks it up and thumbing a riffle through the pages says ‘Fish, fish, ice, fish, dive-dive-dive, fish, ice, egg, fish - bit boring isn’t it?’Toby looks as if he's fighting a sneeze, amusement bubbling through disdain, buthe hefts out 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Andy, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'Andy stabs straight back, ‘I see your Hamlet, and up you Coriolanus.’All this mirth amongst The Dun Cow Literati (as the landlady wryly calls us) is clearly getting in the way of Toby's seriousness. Philosophy and a half-pint? And when he fixes on that high ground look, it sheens and sets over him like a lacquer.Tapping his book, I say ‘I’ve bought quite a few books on philosophy over the years.’‘Here we go! Philosophy? Been there, done that.’‘Complete opposite Andy. I had Consolations, Confessions, Introductions, Guides, I even had ones with help from Homer Simpson and Winnie-the-Pooh, they took up a good bit of bookshelf - but I never read a one.’‘Why not?’‘I suppose that deep down, I realised it was a bit of bullshit-bravado bookshelf, too many titles and types of - worthiness - that I would never get round to reading but wouldn’t let go.’’Didn’t you even try?’ Andy asks.’To let go? I did. Went through all the shelves...’’No, to read them.’’Sure, but it never took long for my brain to explode and fall out in my lap.’’So what are you saying?’ Toby crackles, ‘I’m doing bullshit-bravado too?’‘No, not at all. I’m saying me.’‘Books are the key!’ Toby says, brandishing the dictionary under my nose. The pages smell new.‘Funny you should say that. Just as I was thinking about moving on those books, you know, rationalising that I was shedding an older ego, I got a letter from a book magazine with a FREE GIFT, a paper bookmark. The quote on it was from Murakami’s Norwegian Wood: “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” And when I read that I took it as a good omen - to get rid of the books.’‘Why? Sounds a bit perverse to me.’‘Well, I thought about that quote and about where people get their food for thought. Whatever Murakami thinks, they obviously get it from more than just books. And I had to acknowledge that I probably invested unrealistic hopes in books.’‘It’s never too late to learn.’ Toby says calmly, ignoring Andy’s mock of doubt.‘Trouble was, back then I think I was aspiring to be some kind of refined, well-read eccentric. And despite it being obvious, I couldn't see that would never be me, that my learning mode is more...experiential.’‘Experiential?’‘Experiential experimentalist.’Andy invites Toby to ’Look it up in your book.’‘I wish I’d known you were going to get into philosophy though, I could’ve let you have them.’’So?...when did you get rid of them?’I work it out, ‘About three months ago.’‘Three months! What about back then, then?’’Never too late to learn, Andy. Is it Toby?’Andy grabs the glasses, ‘I’m getting three pints. OK?’ then stomps off, mumbling over his shoulder. ​Toby smiles after him, ‘Did he say Bullshitism?’‘I thought I heard him say Kant.’

50. Watkins Ale

Toby pauses as he leaves the table, ‘Fancy trying the guest ale this time round?’‘What is it?’Moving towards the bar, he squints and calls back ’Er…Watkin’s…’Andy is for it but a sudden intrusive image discomposes me, ’I’ll give it a miss.’ ‘Not like you to not give something a go’ Andy observes. To his surprise and amusement, I start humming the tune to the Elizabethan bawdy of Watkins Ale. He doesn’t know it and as I’m explaining the reference, Toby returns with my chocolate stout and two pints of ‘Walkin’s Ale.’‘That’s a relief!’ says Andy, holding his pint to the light.Toby looks puzzled; I try the tune on him, then the reference, which freeze-frames him mid-swig, eyeing me over the rim of his glass.Andy sips and relishes, ‘This has quite a nutty flavour though - don’t you think?’ Toby puts down his glass and challenges him, ’What is it with you and the crudities?’‘What’s not to like about dipping your carrot in hummus?’Toby isn’t playing. He gets up and excuses himself, adding ‘See if you can raise the tone before I get back.’‘What was all that about?’ I ask.‘Dunno. Unless he just gets sensitive about that kind of stuff. You know it’s because of his Watkins Ale that he and Carol don’t have any kids?’‘I think Georgie mentioned it.’In fact I recall Georgie telling me it was Carol who couldn’t conceive but that Toby insisted on ‘blaming’ himself if the subject of their childlessness arose, apparently motivated by his notions of gallantry and protecting Carol, even though she had long been in balanced reconciliation with what life, chance, fate - whichever, had brought and not brought them. With that recall I felt myself suddenly flooded then washed away by a momentary but complete appreciation of the infinite variations in journeys to the same destinations, the different passages to their rites, the cool indifference of joys and hurts to our plans for shaping the future. ’Do you ever think about the happenstance of things, Andy?’‘How do you mean?’I almost coughed up the version of Toby and Carol that Georgie had told me but managed to divert to ‘How fragile all the possibilities are. You turn left instead of right, you miss a bus, you stop to check your phone, you cross the road to the sunny side…’‘And?’‘That’s what I mean, And? And - things take a different course. Things, events, life.’‘Are you batting for Fate now?’‘No, but I can see the appeal. When you look at the course of your life, you can trace it back to the spring and how it runs to the stream, to the river, to the sea.''That’s the clarity - and uselessness - of hindsight.''I guess - you can be more confident about where you’ve been than where you’re going.’‘Absolutamente.’ We drink. ‘Someone once bought me a book,’ I continue, Chance, Luck & Destiny, whose author tried unravelling things like how we unravel how we end up where we do - with who we do…’‘And?’‘Didn’t help, I’m still ravelled.’’So what was it about…for example?’’Well…if Toby…had got a bit closer to the bar, he would have seen and said Walkins instead of Watkins, I wouldn’t have tripped to that tune, I would have tried a pint of Walkins, we would be having a different conversation altogether and Toby wouldn’t be off pinging with whatever discomfort he’s in.’‘You don’t know that, it might be nothing to do with what either of us said. He might just be in the kind of mood to take his bat and ball home. You know how arsey he can be!’I spot Toby returning, clocking body language as he comes, and know he knows we’ve been talking about him. ’Ah, Here’s Toby!’Andy undertones, ‘Okay, change the subject. Say something.’‘Why me?’‘You’re the clever dick!’ ‘Clever...Andy, what do you mean?'Andy feigns fascination with his beer.'Toby?’‘Yes?’‘When did you last have your eyesight checked?’

51. Two Fallouts and a Wedding

Toby and Carol threw a bash for the royal wedding at the weekend. In the kind of company that celebrates such an occasion, I would have been like a stick of sweaty dynamite, unstable and ready to go off. So it was a no-brainer to decline the invitation on my own behalf. But I was sincere when saying to Georgie ‘Go and enjoy yourself if you fancy it.’This triggered the first falling out I ascribe to the royal wedding.‘We should go as a couple!’‘Why? We’re not joined at the hip.’‘Are Andy and Olga going?’‘What’s that got to do with it?’‘I bet they’re going.’‘Probably.’‘As a couple?…probably?’When saying ‘thanks but not for me’ it was not just to avoid my own discomfiture but also to spare Toby and Carol’s guests some fulminating indignance concerning royalty. Georgie thinks I’m too old to fulminate, should get over indignance and put my feelings to one side for the occasion. On this, I’m the same as I ever was and neither want to or feel I can. That kind of conviction and passion fired the coupling up when our own everness began but it seems it's supposed to have embered out now, cooled into more studied coupleness. Georgie rescued me from some dark and destructive waywardness with love I neither expected or believed I deserved. She brought me into the light and made me a calmer, saner man - someone reasonable and half-decent. But I won't be emotionally or intellectually corralled, even by Georgie.She didn't go.'You should have come, you would have enjoyed it.'My smile tells Toby what I think of that assertion.'Actually,' he says leaning in and smiling back, 'I was relieved you said no.'And so, the second falling out.'Why invite me if that's how you felt?''Well, you know…you're a friend! But they're all decent people...and I know what you're like.'I watch Andy duck his head through the bunting still overhanging the bar as he fetches our drinks. Above the bunting, already in pride of place, is the picture the landlady took at Windsor, a distant wedding couple seen through a froth of hats.'It was a good do wasn't it Andy?''It was. You should have come, you miserable bastard - we missed Georgie.' Andy hands me my pint.Now I'm skin-prickle rankled. 'She could have gone, I wasn't stopping her.' I turn to Toby, 'But thanks for your hopes of sparing decent people my company or is it the other way round?''Don't be like that!'‘It's because you're my friend that I didn't come!’'How does that work?' Andy asks.'Maybe I should have, it was irritating enough anyway trying to avoid the media coverage. But then how would I have avoided offending all the Union Jack junkies, snarfing royally iced sponger cake? Maybe I could have got some fun out of it.''I'm more relieved than ever now! You're out of order!''Really? Yours is the wrong order, the part-sheep part of a nation herded into plebbish fawning and docility. But what does it matter when the other one is knocking them out like a sperm bank?'With my blood up and still rising, it’s better that I leave. I'm regretting my manner even as I step from The Dun Cow into the moted slants of evening sun. The trouble with half-decent is the other half.

.52. Mistery

It had to be done; apologies to Andy and Toby for my anti-royalist outburst last time I saw them. So I gave them both a bell. I found it hard to find a form of words that didn’t qualify the apology, I meant what I said and still believed I was right, just that I went about being right in the wrong way. So I settled on ’Sorry for behaving like a twat.’Andy said not to worry, he found it entertaining and I thought Toby was being magnanimous in inviting Georgie and me round to his for a meal that he would cook himself, ‘No hard feelings, I’ll do one of my specialities.’‘As long as it’s not humble pie!’ I half joke.‘That’s not one of my specialities. And it wouldn’t be nearly as good as all the others you must have eaten.’Rapprochement. ’I didn’t know you were into cooking.’‘I’m a man of many parts…’‘We’ll bring the wine if you let us know what we’re having.’‘What do you fancy? Coronation chicken? King prawn curry? Queen scallops?’I take it on the chin. ’What about Windsor soup?’‘OK. What about a pint?’

The North Sea has been shunting fogs, vapours and mists our way for days on end, chimes from the market clock tower dinning thin and tinny, lamp posts topped by halos of struggling light. I turn the corner and see The Dun Cow curtained in drifts and swags of milky damp that close behind me as I enter. The spray of spring flowers in the fireplace has been replaced by green-burning logs, Andy and Toby sitting close enough to get smoked and there's a beer waiting for me, it's head thinned to a film of bubbles. I head straight to the bar for three whiskeys, raising querulous smiles when I put them on the table.'My spirits are low' I crack feebly.'Scotch mist! Cheers.'I feel grateful for Toby's cheeriness but looking around at the faces of the fog-thinned regulars, am startled by the sudden realisation that I'm surrounded by hostile locals who all know each others' families intimately and that I'm going to be attacked and mangled American Werewolf in London style on the walk home. I finger my chest where I think the inevitable silver bullet will go.'Are you OK?', Andy seems genuinely solicitous.'Yeah, suppose. I never really rated that Jenny Agutter...except in Walkabout.'They exchange a flicked glance, 'Are you off on one?' Toby asks.'I sometimes think life is just one big one.''I can tell you're not yourself, you haven't even commented on Toby's moustache.'I had spotted Toby's work in progress, comprised of mostly perpendicular bristles, but I couldn't find anything good to say about it so had kept schtum until Andy's prompt, 'Keep going with that and you're more likely to get shot than me.'Toby goggles and spreads his hands in a gesture of appeal for understanding.'They'd shoot me because I'm a werewolf, you'd get shot for possession of a crime scene lip. Are all the mirrors in your house broken?'Toby frowns and puckers, making him look even more shootable, and goes exasperado, 'I have absolutely no idea what the fuck you're on about!'Andy laughs, drinks, 'Neither have I, but welcome back!'I try the flat-topped beer, 'I think I lost myself. Sláinte.'

53. cat.banana.sigh

Back home from the pub, I take off my shorts and put them in the laundry bin. Of course I know what they were getting at. Deep pink, palm trees, yachts - they could look something on a much younger man. I must have missed the grow old gracefully turnoff.It was Toby who rang to suggest meeting at The Dun Cow for its official re-opening, nearly five weeks since that crack-fizzed driver lost control of his car and put it through the bay window. Just cuts and bruises. His passengers were taken as proof of cosmic insignificance, God’s indifference or fickle fate, according to your lights; she suffered multiple injuries, her boyfriend was killed. I found myself gazing at the progressing repairs - mottled pink plaster, primed woodwork - and reflecting that it wouldn’t be long before the William Morris floral is back on the wall, the smell of paint is gone and sepia Edwardians flank the new window.'You haven't touched your beer!’The landlord has moved the raggle of faded flowers and small soft toys from the bay to a hawthorn in the car park. He’s declared a votive fortnight's grace there, but only inside the broken ring of candles. The tyre skids are still running at brickwork.Dragging myself into polite presence I ask, ‘Have you heard of what3words mapping?’ ‘What’s that?’‘I was reading about it the other week. It’s a location system that covers the surface of the earth with a grid of three metre squares, each square with a unique three word reference.’‘Like what?’’Well…whatever, something…like…cat.banana.sigh.’’I’m sure I had one of their L.P.s.’ Toby cracks.‘What about - drink.your.beer?’‘Yes, cheers Andy!' That three metre square of damage must now have that kind of name, one that could head a virtual commemoration with more lasting prospects than the one reconfigured to a tree twenty metres away. I wonder about the tree's words. My beer doesn’t taste right. I don’t feel right. I’m uneased by the presence in cat.banana.sigh. over there. I read. I listen. There are words for how I’m feeling, but words and feeling have oil and watered. I don’t take in what Andy is saying because the jukebox bit of my head has clunked up Hamlet via Hair - ‘I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth…’, but it's not long before the music's gone and I’m doing quintessence of dust.'I wonder how young he was?'‘What? I was just saying, why would anyone want a system like that?’'Early twenties? Late teens?''Look! It was a tragedy…’ Toby says, pointing at the tragedy and looking at me, ‘…of course it was. But people die every day. That’s life! What's the matter with you? Let's talk about something more cheerful.'Andy is keen to, 'I see you’ve got your comedy shorts on.’I make an effort to pick up. ‘What about Toby’s?’‘He’s wearing proper shorts.' Toby's insouciance tips a bit rictus, 'Yeah! Where's your skateboard?' I snort. His shorts are beige. Turn-ups. Creases. 'Those look too uptight for me.’‘Uptight!?’ Toby laughs and throws me a peace sign, 'Dude!'‘Uptight my arse!’ Andy boom-booms.They do a laughing high five that looked a bit daft. Needs younger hands. Maybe there really is an age to stop doing some things and not start others.'Anyway, Bungalow Bill,' I point at Toby with my pint hand, 'I wouldn't fancy going commando in those.’‘Commando!?’ they sync.‘Commando.’ I gesture to my shorts.They don’t believe me, I prove it. I think the heat is getting altogether too much for me.Back home from the pub, I take off my shorts and put them in the laundry bin. Of course I know what they were getting at. Deep pink, palm trees, yachts - they could look something on a much younger man. I must have missed the grow old gracefully turnoff.It was Toby who rang to suggest meeting at The Dun Cow for its official re-opening, nearly five weeks since that crack-fizzed driver lost control of his car and put it through the bay window. Just cuts and bruises. His passengers were taken as proof of cosmic insignificance, God’s indifference or fickle fate, according to your lights; she suffered multiple injuries, her boyfriend was killed. I found myself gazing at the progressing repairs - mottled pink plaster, primed woodwork - and reflecting that it wouldn’t be long before the William Morris floral is back on the wall, the smell of paint is gone and sepia Edwardians flank the new window.'You haven't touched your beer!’The landlord has moved the raggle of faded flowers and small soft toys from the bay to a hawthorn in the car park. He’s declared a votive fortnight's grace there, but only inside the broken ring of candles. The tyre skids are still running at brickwork.Dragging myself into polite presence I ask, ‘Have you heard of what3words mapping?’ ‘What’s that?’‘I was reading about it the other week. It’s a location system that covers the surface of the earth with a grid of three metre squares, each square with a unique three word reference.’‘Like what?’’Well…whatever, something…like…cat.banana.sigh.’’I’m sure I had one of their L.P.s.’ Toby cracks.‘What about - drink.your.beer?’‘Yes, cheers Andy!' That three metre square of damage must now have that kind of name, one that could head a virtual commemoration with more lasting prospects than the one reconfigured to a tree twenty metres away. I wonder about the tree's words. My beer doesn’t taste right. I don’t feel right. I’m uneased by the presence in cat.banana.sigh. over there. I read. I listen. There are words for how I’m feeling, but words and feeling have oil and watered. I don’t take in what Andy is saying because the jukebox bit of my head has clunked up Hamlet via Hair - ‘I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth…’, but it's not long before the music's gone and I’m doing quintessence of dust.'I wonder how young he was?'‘What? I was just saying, why would anyone want a system like that?’'Early twenties? Late teens?''Look! It was a tragedy…’ Toby says, pointing at the tragedy and looking at me, ‘…of course it was. But people die every day. That’s life! What's the matter with you? Let's talk about something more cheerful.'Andy is keen to, 'I see you’ve got your comedy shorts on.’I make an effort to pick up. ‘What about Toby’s?’‘He’s wearing proper shorts.' Toby's insouciance tips a bit rictus, 'Yeah! Where's your skateboard?' I snort. His shorts are beige. Turn-ups. Creases. 'Those look too uptight for me.’‘Uptight!?’ Toby laughs and throws me a peace sign, 'Dude!'‘Uptight my arse!’ Andy boom-booms.They do a laughing high five that looked a bit daft. Needs younger hands. Maybe there really is an age to stop doing some things and not start others.'Anyway, Bungalow Bill,' I point at Toby with my pint hand, 'I wouldn't fancy going commando in those.’‘Commando!?’ they sync.‘Commando.’ I gesture to my shorts.They don’t believe me, I prove it. I think the heat is getting altogether too much for me.

54. Forgedaboutit.

Toby is writing in a birthday card, using me to shield himself from Andy's view whilst he is at the bar. Finishing with a flourish, he seals the card in its envelope after wetting his tongue with the last of his pint. Balancing the envelope against the empty glass, he points at it, looks at me and challenges ’You forgot didn't you?’‘No, I just didn't remember.'‘That's forgetting.’‘It's not remembering.’‘It's the same thing!’‘Different thing.’‘Would you have remembered if I hadn't just told you?’‘Probably. But clearly, too late.’‘That's the same as forgetting isn't it?’‘No. It's worse; forgetting altogether would be better than remembering too late.’‘So how is forgetting not not remembering?’‘Forgetting, for me, is never remembering.’‘Never remembering! What a load of rubbish!'‘It's a distinction.'‘How? Give me an example!'I laugh, ‘You want me to give you an example of something I've forgotten?'Toby dismisses the subject, ‘How did we get into this conversation?’‘I can't remember.’‘Well anyway, it is too late now.’Andy has returned with the drinks, 'What have you been talking about?''Best you never know.''Yeah, forget about it.'Andy looks miffed. ‘Our idiocy might be contagious’, I explain.Andy sees the card, picks it up. Toby raises his glass, ’Happy birthday Andy.’ Andy works the card into a side pocket of his jacket, 'Cheers.’‘Aren’t you going to open it?’‘Is it a birthday card?’‘What do you think?’‘For me?’’Says ‘Andy’ on it!’‘I’ll open it on my birthday then.’When Toby senses that Andy is playing it straight, his expression betrays suspicion, ’I thought…’‘When’s your birthday then Andy?’ I ask.’Next Friday.’’…so how have I got that wrong?’‘You’ve just misremembered, Toby...’ he gives me an irky glare, ‘...which isn't to say you forgot...' he adds an irky gesture, '...maybe it’s somebody else’s birthday that you’re not remembering.’'You know what you can do, don't you?''No, you'd better remind me.'Toby makes his gesture more expansive.'Hey, you just got the date wrong but I appreciate the thought.' Andy raises his glass.'Yeah well, it's the thought that counts.' Toby says, and when he spots me suppressing a smile...'Hello! Have you just remembered something?''Well...that whole thought thing,' I turn to Andy, 'To be honest, even if I did know and remember your birthday, I might think about it but doubt whether I would buy you a card.'Andy shrugs indifference and swigs, Toby swigs but cannot suppress 'Why not?''It would be out of character.''What character is that then? Arsehole?'He's right, today that seems to be in character, 'I thought it was the thought that counts.''Don't worry, you won't be getting a card from me!''I'm not expecting one now...not on my actual birthday anyway.'Andy sighs, works the card from his pocket and slips a big wide thumb under the freshstuck flap, 'At our age, who gives a monkey's?'